It took some late-game drama, however the St. Louis Blues ended their five-game slide Thursday, handing the Florida Panthers a 5–4 defeat at Enterprise Center.
The sport was a back-and-forth affair from the outset. Florida opened the scoring at 3:12 of the primary period when AJ Greer pounced on a defensive miscue to net a rebound. St. Louis responded swiftly as Jake Neighbours, coming back from a lower-body injury and questionable to play, converted a breakaway 1:34 later to tie the sport 1-1. Jordan Kyrou, also back from injury, gave the Blues a 2-1 lead at 7:51 after a Philip Broberg interception and trail pass set him up within the left circle.
The Panthers tied the competition at 2-2 with a power-play goal from Sam Reinhart at 9:22, and Matthew Tkachuk, in only his sixth game after missing the primary 47 of the season as a result of adductor and sports hernia surgery, scored twice to even the sport at 4-4. Tkachuk scored at 16:52 and again on the ability play at 18:39, giving him his first two goals of the season, and he also achieved the milestone of 400 profession assists in the sport.
At 11:01 of the third period, Nick Bjugstad was assessed a double-minor for high-sticking Evan Rodrigues, who was playing in his 600th NHL game. St. Louis killed the complete 4 minutes without allowing a single shot, an astonishing feat given the team’s league-low Twenty ninth-ranked penalty kill.
Head coach Jim Montgomery credited the hassle on the penalty kill because the turning point, saying:
“We had already given up two power-play goals. The hassle by our penalty killers was awesome. The response by our fans was awesome, and it gave us life.”
Overall, the Blues went 5-for-7 on the penalty kill in a game that featured 18 penalties and 44 minutes of power play time.
The late-game heroics got here on an influence play. With just 9 seconds remaining, Pavel Buchnevich threaded a cross-ice pass to Jimmy Snuggerud within the left face-off circle, and Snuggerud rifled a one-timer past Panthers goalie Daniil Tarasov for the game-winning goal. Kyrou contributed a goal and two assists, while Buchnevich and Justin Faulk each recorded two assists. Joel Hofer made 17 saves for St. Louis, while Tarasov stopped 26 for Florida.
Other contributors included Jonatan Berggren and Oskar Sundqvist, who scored the Blues’ third and fourth goals, respectively, each coming back from injuries. St Louis, now 20-25-9, will hope to hold this momentum into Saturday’s home matchup against the Columbus Blue Jackets.